Sale: Triton X, Lot: 1293. Estimate $4000.  Closing Date: Monday, 8 January 2007.  Sold For $26000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

RUSSIA, Tsars of Russia. Aleksandr II Nikolaevich. 1855-1881. AV 3 Roubles (3.95 g, 12h). Sankt-Peterburg (St. Petersburg) mint; Nikolai Follendorf, mintmaster. Dated 1879. Crowned double-headed imperial eagle facing with wings displayed, holding scepter and orb, coat-of-arms of Moskva framed by Order of St. Andrei the First Called on breast; arms of Kazan, Kingdom of Poland, Crimea, and United Principal Russian Grand Duchies on right wing, Astrakhan, and Novosibirsk, Caucasus, and Grand Duchy of Finland on left; filleted imperial crown above; mintmaster’s initials flanking tail / (eight-petaled flower) “Unalloyed gold 81 Dolyas”, ¨ 3 ¨/Roubles”/(ornamental spacer)/1879/mintmark in Cyrillic in five lines across field. Bitkin 42; Uzdenikov 276; Friedberg 164; KM (Y)26. In an NGC slab graded MS 62. Extremely rare.

Bitkin cites a mintage of 5(?) pieces for this issue.